


this death will be art

by Chromathesia



Series: acoc fics by chrom [4]
Category: A Crown of Candy - Fandom, Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Hanging mention, M/M, TW: Blood mention, TW: fantasy violence, i made a good headcanon and then went "y'know what would destroy my friends?, if i wrote a short fic about it", prince consort calroy au, so i did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromathesia/pseuds/Chromathesia
Summary: After Calroy seizes Castle Candy, he takes off the symbol of his vows, clinically breaks it down to its parts, and hands it to a man with calloused hands and a hard candy anvil.--Calroy has a special dagger made, after what he thinks is his victory.
Relationships: Calroy Cruller/Amethar Rocks
Series: acoc fics by chrom [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782913
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	this death will be art

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShippingEverything](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippingEverything/gifts).



> i may not be a citizen of calmethar nation but i at the very least have a visa to travel there
> 
> title from the buttress's "brutus." for a good time, look up the verse it's in :)

After Calroy seizes Castle Candy, he takes off the symbol of his vows, clinically breaks it down to its parts, and hands it to a man with calloused hands and a hard candy anvil. The man squints at the tiny chunks of gold and the handful of impeccable sugar diamonds, grunts, and one week later returns to the castle with a golden hilt, diamonds surrounding the handle just below the quillion. He has it fitted with watersteel before Alfredi is hanged and spends late nights making himself a leather scabbard that fits at his waist.

It’s an entrancing blade. Watersteel has this strange quality in which it shimmers transparently in the morning light in a way that caramel iron and carved rock candy does not, and Calroy spends more time than he cares to admit staring through the blade. More often than not, he finds himself absent-mindedly polishing the blade, carefully wiping away the dust that settles on the blade. He uses a small pat of butter to coat the surface of the blade, and when he ceremoniously wipes it off the blade itself seems to dance.

He tests the blade himself. Of course he does. Every one of his daggers must be sharpened by hand and tested in training before he even considers keeping it on his person, and this dagger is to be the most important one he will ever wield. It takes the watersteel being completely embedded for it to dissolve within a foe so he carefully flicks his wrist to score a line across his arm and watches as blood beads against the surface of his skin and gathers at the tip of his blade. It is adequate, he decides. He does not have to test it against anything. They do not deserve to be pierced and punctured by this most perfect of weaponry. He practices with an iron dagger that fits his hand the way the gold-and-steel dagger does and sends sweet sugargrass flying out of the training dummies.

Calroy’s compatriots know about the dagger. Why wouldn’t they? Belizabeth was the one to summon Alfredi, Ciabatta found Calroy polishing the blade as his arm freely bled, and Plumbeline is the first to snap at Calroy while he is lost in thought staring at it, imagining the blood of a man he allowed to love him for some twenty-odd years seeping into where the diamonds are embedded. 

“We are discussing the fate of Comida, Lord Cruller,” she says, directing her attention to the blade in his hand and the woven silk cloth he procured to polish it (he procured it by finding one of Theobald’s capes and gleefully slicing it to bits that he carries around to slather in polishing butter and burn). “Your home may be safe now” (her voice sneers over the word ‘home’) “but mine is not and I’d like to see that done as soon as we can manage.”

Calroy simply lets himself finish polishing the dagger before storing it away carefully in its sheath and turning back to her, eyebrow cocked. “I can only assume that you have a plan in full, if my attention is so greatly desired.”

He gleefully watches her splutter.

The plan to reclaim Comida doesn’t succeed before Calroy watches in horror as Ciabatta is cut down by a princess he helped raise. Even from the castle, Calroy can tell that Ruby’s hands don’t shake as they should as she throws a useless hilt to the side (where the hell did she even get watersteel herself? they had seen fit to destroy all evidence of it when Alfredi seemed ready to flee with the knowledge herself). When he looks up, Amethar is there and he can hear the crackling in the air and he knows before he feels Amethar’s unadulterated fury.

“What’s the last part of my title?” he asks and lifts Payment Day slightly and Calroy can see that he no longer wears his ring, and his hearing begins to buzz, a constant hum that drowns out the sound of the battle raging below him.

“Amethar **–** ”

“What’s the last part of my title?” Calroy notices a figure that seems spun into the air, not quite real, and he wonders how his life would have ended if he had never slit Donetta’s throat.

He tries again. “My maj **–** ”

“Say it, Calroy.” Calroy, not Cal. “What’s the last part of my title?”

The figure that Calroy noticed has wisped behind him and kicks a knee and Calroy is suddenly bowed before Amethar. Calroy’s hand makes it to the dagger at his waist and his hearing returns and he feels something twist his face and his heart at the same time. “All hail,” he snarls, and he feels something inside of him crumble when Amethar hears the call and his eyes widen the way they did whenever Calroy ambushed him from the shadows of Castle Candy to kiss him, “King Amethar, first of his name, the Unfallen.” And the dagger is whipped out and he sees the gems sparkle in the pink-red light of the sky and it’s beautiful, how this work of art that he so carefully had created arcs out and slashes through Amethar’s clothes (he sliced himself with the tip of the dagger, once, and his blood became Amethar’s blood and now he feels the tug and give of skin and muscle and sees Amethar bleed). He turns, ready to plunge the already-dissolving dagger into Amethar’s chest, and--

The hilt drops from his hand. He feels numb, slightly, and he cannot feel his legs, and suddenly Amethar is embracing him and holding him to his chest

(Amethar’s blood becomes his blood)

(his ears are ringing his ears are ringing they’re not stopping he makes eye contact with the sun)

(he cannot feel his fingers now)

(his blood is already cooling-- he doesn’t feel it he doesn’t feel when Amethar draws away **–** )

(he sluggishly blinks and sees a figure that stands barely to his shoulder: her crimson eyes are bleeding tears and she notices him looking but she turns away, and Calroy has a compulsion to reach out to her but he can’t and **–** )

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](twitter.com/chromathesia) and [Tumblr](chromathesia.tumblr.com).


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